


2.47 Billion

by GrimRevolution



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen, Not A Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-25
Updated: 2013-11-25
Packaged: 2018-01-02 14:48:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1058059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrimRevolution/pseuds/GrimRevolution
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Under the Tower of London, the Doctor looks into his past and wonders… when did lying get so easy?</p>
            </blockquote>





	2.47 Billion

“Did you ever count?”

The nail scratched against the stone, carving it away slowly. Dust sprinkled on his shoes, coating the brown with a fine spray of grey that would be easily blown off later. Not that he cared too much about the mess—not like he had anyone to impress. “Count what?” He turned away from the carving for a second to look back at the weathered face staring at him. A face so much older than his own, yet so much younger. His stomach clenched and he turned back to the numerals.

“How many children there were on Gallifrey that day?”

Metal almost slipped through his fingers, catching on his nails as it slipped and he froze, staring at the dust in the markings, the stone fading out of his vision and replacing itself with red and fire and gold. It took him a second longer to come back and he started to scratch at the wall again, not looking at the younger versions of himself. “I have absolutely no idea.”

Eyes carved into his back like the nail was carving into stone; accusingly, hatefully.

“How old are you now?”

 _Stop asking questions_ , his eyes never left the numbers, the nail, the grey dust fluttering down to cover his laces and the edges of his pants. “Oh, I dunno,” pulling away, he let his hands fall, staring at the wall and not bothering to look at the hatred and the judgment on his younger selves’ faces. “I lose track. Twelve hundred and something, I think.” _Liar,_ his brain hissed at him and he scrambled for something sort of like the truth, wondering if this was the sort of man he was now; one that can lie to his younger selves without batting an eye. “Unless I’m lying,” He brought the nail back up before dropping it again. “I can’t remember if I’m lying about my age, _that’s_ how old I am.”

“Four hundred years older than me and in all that time you never even wondered how many there were?”

He pushed down harder, desperately trying to carve the stone away as if it would carve away that gravelly voice behind him as well.

“You never once counted?”

It took almost everything he had to reign in his temper. That temper that had been building over four hundred years. Since the Time War, since the Daleks and the Bad Wolf, since the Master and the white point star and Manhattan. He whipped away from the stone, almost choking on the words he caught in his mouth, not daring to meet their eyes in case they saw their future in his own.

So he licked his lips, shifted the broken pieces that were his mask back in place, and looked upon himself. “Tell me; what would be the point?” _Why count the dead? Why add more pain to the billions of billions who already have suffered and died at my hand? Why count those children too?_

“Two-point-four-seven _billion_.”

“You _did_ count!”

They both sounded accusatory and he closed his eyes, shaking his head as if to clear cobwebs away from thoughts in the back. Or to bring denial to the front. Or wash the number away with all the others that added up to the blood on his hands. So he turned back to the wall, carving again.

“You _forgot_?!” His last regeneration spat, walking forward, brown eyes staring him down, furious with the bushy brows drawn together and lips curled back over the many teeth. “Four hundred years, is that all it _takes_?”

“I moved on.” Voices screamed at him from the boiling depths of his hearts; _Liar!_

“Where?!” the younger Doctor snapped. “Where can you be now that you could forget something like _that_?”

 _Demon’s run when a good man goes to war._ “Spoilers.”

“No. No, no, no,” the pain was etched on his face, that fear buried beneath those wide, brown eyes. _He will knock four times_. The fear of death, the fear of what was ahead. “You know, for once I would like to know where I’m going.”

A snarl grew in the back of his throat, climbing upwards as his eyes grew cold and his voice turned to sharp crystal, piercing down his younger self with the precision of a bullet. “No you _really_ wouldn’t.”

That face—older than his own but still so young—stared at him. Getting a taste of the man behind the fez and the hand waving and the ridiculous prancing about. His younger self stared for a long time, searching his face before pity grew in his gaze, burning at the heart of his pupils.

“I don’t know who you are,” their younger self said, shaking his head slightly in disbelief even though neither of them looked at him, too busy with their eyes locked. The tenth regeneration stared at his next self, unable to really comprehend the darkness that had festered beneath the surface. The coldness, the loneliness. “Either of you.”

Turning away from his stare, the Doctor turned to face the weathered, old man in the corner.

“I haven’t the faintest idea.”

Lips curling up in something close to a sneer, the Doctor turned away from the words, mask clicking into place until his eyes were back to that same, dulled brightness. His mouth relaxed into a concentrating frown, brow softening, shoulders slumping just a bit. He turned away from his other selves, wiping away the excess dust on the wall before going back to carving, watching from the corner of his eye as the man who had been watching him turned away.

“No.”

The last regeneration had gone back, closer to their youngest self, leaning against a stone pillar like the one he was carving on.“No?”

“Just… _no._ ”

_You don’t exactly have a choice._

The comment wasn’t even remotely funny, yet the Doctor found himself chuckling mirthlessly anyway, tracing over the numbers he had carved out with his eyes, wondering if he should make them a bit deeper so that they would last over the ages—it needed to get to the twenty-first century after all. The statement itself was so _humorous_ and yet not at the same time.

 _Not one line_.

That promise led him to that spot. All of this would happen. Were they ashamed of who they would become? Not that he could blame them; he wouldn’t have wanted to become him either.

“Is something funny?” The tall man was the only one walking about, moving between the pillars, not really knowing whether to be stuck with the past he hated or the future he didn’t want to be. “Did I miss our funny thing?”

Scratching at the back of his head, the Doctor grinned. “Sorry,” there was something terribly morbidly amusing about the moment; the three of them all in one place. One didn’t want to look back, one didn’t want to move forward, and the last made the decision to kill billions to save the universe. “It just occurred to me this is what I’m like when I’m alone.”

_Which you should never be. Don’t be alone, Doctor._

He laughed at that voice too, turning back to look upon the dust on the floor—the same color as the skin of a Weeping Angel—before going back to carving, ignoring the ‘middle child’ as he started to toss his screwdriver up into the air, catching it with ease.

The Doctor ignored him, wiping away the dust to look over his handwork and place the nail inside his coat pocket, next to his screwdriver. Kate and Clara would find it easily enough, he knew. Jack’s Vortex Manipulator wasn’t ever too far from UNIT ever since…

“Four hundred years.”

Blinking, he was torn out of his thoughts, turning to face the youngest of the three of them and pushed his thoughts and memories to the back of his mind, focusing on the now by the broken, bloody tips of his fingernails.

_Rule one?_

_The Doctor lies._


End file.
